Writer’s Notebook
Taken from 100 Quickwrites by Linda Rief
Guidelines for Writer’s Notebook
 Write as quickly as you can for the time allotted.
 Write about all the poem brings to mind.
 Make connections to events that have happened in your
life, or what is currently happening.
 Borrow one of the lines, letting the line lead your
thinking.
 Don’t worry about spelling or grammar at this time.
(There’s plenty of time for that later!)
A Slice of Life by Katherine T.
What’s as confusing as last week’s
science lab?
Either warn you about the dangers it
brings,
Can be as sweet as sugar?
Or tell you to live it to the fullest.
Then, sharp as a knife?
Perhaps you know what I am talking
about.
Comes quickly
But with no instructions on how to
handle it?
Can take you up to the stars
Or throw you sprawling against a
rock?
Just when you think you’ve got it
figured out,
Don’t let it pass you by without
making a mark
Or saving a memory, because
It will only come once, and soon the
opportunities,
The moments, the dreams
Will all just be a slice of your past
It takes an unexpected turn.
The piece of life that we call
Those who have lived it
Adolescence.
Flaws? By Owen A.
There is a fat kid who is laughed at solely because he is fat. Every day
he is made of, and every day he goes home crying. He is fat. He admits
it. He tries to lose weight, but nothing works. He has zits and shaggy
hair. Kids call him lard face, doughboy, and fatso. He acts like it doesn’t
hurt him at all. He walks by, eyes down, mouth closed, never responding
to any of the taunts. On the outside, it looks like he doesn’t care, but on
the inside his stomach has knots and his throat catches. Every time he’s
called a new name it slices like a paper cut. But he’s become quite good
at suppressing his emotions.
When this kid goes home to his trailer park house, he goes right to his
computer, the gateway to his sanctuary, where he doesn’t get ridiculed
because of his physical appearance. If you were on the outside, looking
in, you might think this kid is kind of weird – antisocial even. But he’s
really just a regular kid, who wants some friends, or just a friend, who
might pick him for a team just once, or not groan and roll his eyes when
he’s assigned the seat next to him, or might ask him to his house to
skateboard or play computer games…or might just call me by my real
name for once.
Dandelions by Graeham D.
I am a dreamer
I want to fly,
Please feel my radiance.
But I run instead.
Brush my pollen kiss across each cheek.
I see myself in the eyes of a cat,
Glance my way and see my
A shadow even at night, and
Sunny smile.
I am a shadow too.
Watch me stretch,
I am the dandelion nobody loves.
Though I do not compare to the agile cat.
I am softer than peach fuzz,
Watch me mourn with the earth
Not sleek like the cat,
As raindrops slide from my foliage;
Curled on the sill
I have a heart that can be broken.
Basking in bubbles of sunlight,
Watch me shudder
Sunlight and feline,
When the wind tries my strength,
Bright and warm and beautiful.
And in the end I will
Stand tall still.
Not like me.
Watch as each petal is replaced
Not like me.
With tufts of clouds, each clinging
To a single seed, each seed
Don’t relate me to daffodils,
A synonym of life itself,
I am neither fair nor sweet.
Floating on the breeze.
Don’t say I am a lion,
Watch these words become my wings
I am not brave.
And then
Don’t match my petals to the locks
Watch me fly.
Of a golden-haired girl.
Jen by Jeff B.
I asked you to dance,
But you were still crying.
I gave you a rose,
But you were still depressed .
I gave you a teddy bear,
But you never received it.
I gave you a porcelain unicorn,
But you were still broken up.
I tried to be nice,
I tried to comfort you, I tried to help you,
But none of it worked
So I cried.
And you don’t know
How much it would mean to me
Just to see you,
Smile
That Girl by Gary Soto
from A Fire in My Hands
The public library was saying things
A friend’s lunch. My work
In so many books,
Was never finished.
And I, Catholic boy
My maps were half-colored,
In a green sweater
History a stab in the dark,
Was reading the same page
And fractions the inside
A hundred times.
Of a pocket watch
A girl was in my way,
Spilled on my desk.
Protestant or Jew.
I was no good. And who do I
And she was at the other end
Blame? That girl.
Of the oak table,
When she scribbled a pink
Her hands like doves
Eraser and her pony
On the encyclopedia, E-G.
Tails bounced like skirts,
England, I thought,
I looked up, gazed for what
Germany before the war?
My mother and sister could not
Cursive like waves
Offer, then returned to
Riding to the shore,
The same sentence: The Nile
And tomorrow walk across lawns
Is the longest river in the world.
In a public school dress
A pencil rolled from the
With no guilt pulling at an ear.
Table when she clicked open
And me?
Her binder. I looked up,
I’ll kick
Gazed, looked back down:
My Catholic shoes thtough
The Nile is the longest river…
Leaves, stand in the
Cloakroom and eat.
Time Somebody Told Me by Quantedius Hall
from You Hear Me?
Time Somebody Told Me
Time Somebody Told Me
That I am lovely, good and real
How they loved and needed me
That I am beautiful inside
How my smile is filled with hope
If they only knew me
And my spirit sets them free
How that would make me feel.
How my eyes shine, full of light
Time Somebody Told Me
That my mind is quick, sharp
And full of wit
That I should keep on trying
And never quit.
How good they feel when they hug
me tight.
Time Somebody Told Me
So, I had a talk with myself
Just me, nobody else
‘cause it was time
Somebody Told Me
Within by Lindsay H.
There’s a place within me
And when I walk
That sings like the sea
Up the shore
That dances like the ocean wind
I am not a girl
Soft, but wild and free.
Anymore.
I slip into the sea
There’s a place within me
And
That shifts like the sand
Sing
That swims like a graceful seal
Dance
Heading for the land.
Shift
Swim
There’s a place within me
Sign
That sighs like the tide
And
That curls like a roaring wave
Curl
That the slick seals ride.
Till the tide is low…
Once more, I’m a girl.
Moon Mission: To-Do List by Samuel L.
Grow plants in zero-G
Gather moon rocks and moon dust
Fix satellite
From Mare Crisium on the lunar
surface
Send probe to Venus
Study sleep rhythms in space
Grow crystals in space
Space walk
Take pictures of Earth
Launch satellite
Study how ants work in space
Land in Sea of Vapors on Moon
Gather rock samples from Fra Mauro
on Moon
Examine Autolycus crater on Moon
Orbit Moon
Return to Earth
Honey, when you get back, don’t
forget:
A gallon of milk
A loaf of bread
Cheddar cheese
Waiting for the Splash by Ralph Fletcher
from Looking for Your Name
Last night
after you hung up
I wrote you a poem
hoping it might change your heart.
This morning I tell myself;
Get serious, man.
Someone once compared
writing a poem
and hoping it will
change the world
to dropping rose petals
down a deep well
waiting for the splash
School Daze by Jay S.
help
for enlightenment
i am going to be
but nothing
refracted and i can’t
jumps out of me so i
count a present progressive
run head on
is staring me in the face with verbs crying
into a quadratic
to be conjugated algebraic
monomial factor a voice
sentences are chasing
out of nowhere echoes around me
me as i run into mercantilist
policy as phosphorescent light appears
“You’re eighth graders now!”
in front of me trying
to help me in this mass
confusion i stare at it hoping
Then why do I feel as befuddled as ever?
Just Me, the Ball, and the Basket by Dipta B.
It’s just me, the ball, and the basket
The crowd may roar
The players may talk trash
The officials may blow their whistles
But I don’t hear them
It’s a free shot
No hands waving in my face
No opponents diving and r eaching at me
No twenty-four second clock ticking
No eagar teammates waiting for a pass I can’t make
It’s just me, the ball, and the basket
I slowly raise the ball
Roll it sweetly off my fingertips
Watch its rainbow arc
Swish
He Shaved His Head by Rene Ruiz
from You Hear Me?
He shaved his head to release his imagination.
He did it to get a tattoo on his shiny head.
He did it to lose his normality.
He did it to become a freak.
He did it because he was angry.
He did it to make people angry.
He did it for himself.
A Day in July by Janet M.
Do you remember? I do.
A day in July,
we were on the beach,
our pants rolled to our calves.
they were lost like the bubbles on a
crashing wave.
As the shadows lengthened
so did the focus on my eyes.
I knew the day would end.
The sand and salt made our ankles
itch,
My heart was in my throat,
like lemon juice on a rash,
like seaweed choking a tidal pool.
and the sun made my cheeks burn. I wanted to stay on that beach with
you
Our conversation was not heavy.
until the sand covered our ankles
We did not talk in circles to pull us
down.
and the moon held the tide from
us.
Our words were light and I can’t
remember them,
Insanity by Gaston Dubois
from American Sports Poems
Hit!
Smash
Guts,
Butts,
Crush heads.
Break
Legs,
Arms,
Backs.
Men
In stacks,
All
After a ball.
Rambling Autobiography by Linda Rief
I was born at the height of World War II just as Anne Frank was forced
into Bergen-Belsen by the Nazis. I adore Brigham’s vanilla ice cream in
sugar cone and dipped in chocolate jimmies. I bought my favorite
jacket for a dime at the Methodist Church rummage sale. I have lied to
my parents. I never read a book for pleasure until I was 38 years old.
One of my students once leaned in to me in an interview and said, “My
mother’s having a baby; this is the one she wants.” When I was 12 I
set the organdy curtains in our bathroom on fire, playing with
matched. My favorite place to hide was high in the maple tree in our
front yard where I could spy on neighbors. I can still smell wet white
sheets pulled through the wringer washer when I think of Grammy
Mac. I dated Edmundo in high school because it angered my father. I
fainted when I heard the sound of the zipper as the mortician closed
the body bag holding my mother. I gave birth to twin sons. I once had
dinner with Judy Blume. I am a teacher who writes. I want to be a
writer who teaches…
First Television by Heejung K.
I lost you yesterday
Tell her you’ll be right out
My face pressed
Captured by flickering
You rolled your eyes and said
Against the
Images in black and white
Five minutes, just five minutes
Screen door
The first television on the block
Your mom
Your parents proudly said
I waited
Shushed me
They didn’t miss
With a bucket of chalk, seven
Away with
Rickety playground swings
Different colors for
Don’t you
Pumped higher and higher
Drawing on the sidewalk
Have anything
Until chains slackened
I waited
Better to do
Jolted and dropped us squealing
For swings
And I did
At the highest point
For tag
And so did
They didn’t miss tag
I waited
you
Just the two of us chasing
While you made them happy
Each other across the blacktop
Your silenced family sitting
together
Not even caring who was it
That particular Monday after
Your father cashed his paycheck
And brought home a TV
They cajoled you into watching
Over plastic trays of TV
Dinners and
A little square box that
I came to hate
Hockey by Scott Blaine
from Grab Me a Bus…and Other Award Winning Poems
The ice is smooth, smooth, smooth.
The play is fast, fierce, tense.
The air bites to the center
Sticks click and snap like teeth
Of warmth and flesh, and I whirl.
Of wolves on the scent of a prey.
It begins in a game…
It ends in the kill…
The puck swims, skims, veers,
I am one of the pack in a mad,
Goes leading my vision
Taut leap of desperation
Beyond the chasing reach of my stick.
In the wild, slashing drive for the goal.
The air is sharp, steel-sharp.
I suck needles of breathing,
And feel the players converge.
It grows to a science…
We clot, break, drive,
Electrons in motion
In the magnetic pull of the puck.
When She Was Fifteen by Linda Rief
When she was fifteen she believed the world would be destroyed by an
atomic bomb but Debbie and Pam would probably live because their
fathers were rick and they had bomb shelters. She believed the most
important thing in life was a date for the Junior Prom, but she’s never
have one because her nose was too long, her hair was too short, her legs
were too fat, and she wasn’t a cheerleader. She believed David loved
Paula because Paula plucked her eyebrows.
Summers she worked two jobs. Days she pitched whiffle balls to fiveyear-olds. She awarded blue ribbons and red ribbons and white ribbons
for jumping the highest, running the farthest, and crying the least. At
night she filled Dixie cups with butterscotch sundaes floating in
marshmallow. She poured strawberry frappes and chocolate milk shakes
from The Fountain at Paragon Park, while the roller coaster screamed
overhead with flailing arms, the gypsy lied, and the fat lady bragged
about the two-headed calf. Weekends she watched Babe Ruth baseball
from behind the chain link fence at the high school. David at first, Charlie
at second, and Mac at catcher.
While their parents clapped and girlfriends cheered, she dated Edmundo
because it angered her father…
Swinging the River by Charles Harper Webb
from Preposterous
One by one they climbed out on the thickest
limb,
crouched like 12-year-old Tarzans, then
jumped, whipped through needley branches,
strangling the hemp rope till their nerve broke
and they dropped thirty feet to the river.
I was second-to-last in line. Second-
seemed to hang in the air while the splash
reached up to swallow me, blacking out
the sun, the feathery pine trees,
the blonde girl on the bank…
…who’d said hi the day before,
who was here with her aunt for two short
weeks.
to-chickenest, I guessed. I’d never done this.
I sank like an anvil. Colder and colder.
Rocks and tricky currents had drowned two
kids
in three years. (One was never found.)
My mother’d kill me if she knew…
My turn. My shaking hands grabbed at the
rope.
I didn’t dare think, just jumped,
swooped down, arced up, higher, flew free,
I quietly gave up hope. Then my feet
touched a dead kid. Slime-hands
clutched at me. I kicked wildly
into sickening ooze, broke free, went shooting
up
through millions of bubbles, rocketing out
into the blonde girl’s smile.
When I Was Young at the Ocean by Linda Rief
When I was young at the ocean, I sat at the edge of the wooden pier
and dangled my toes in the water. Like tiny rowboats my toes skimmed
the rolling waves, ever alert for sharks. Sometimes I sat cross-legged
in shorts and tee-shirt, a bamboo fishing pole stretched to catch
mackerel. No one ever told me to bait the hook.
When I was young at the ocean, I cracked open mussels and
periwinkles and clams, and ran my fingers across their gushy insides. I
squished seaweed nodules between my forefinger and thumb, anxious
for the pop and spray from the moist insides.
When I was young at the ocean, I burned my shoulders and
smelled of Noxema through the entire month of July. I drank in the
aroma of hip roses, salt water, and seaweed. At low tide, I played
croquet with the Queen of Hearts, flew to the moon in a hammock, and
fed my dolls deviled ham sandwiches in the shade of the screened
house.
As the tide came in, water lapped at the rocky shore. The skin of my
feet toughened as I paced those rounded stones, my eyes searching
for skippers. When I was young, I never wished to climb the
mountains, or live in the city, or camp in the forest. The ocean was
enough. It still is.
Ringside by Ron Koertge
from Heart to Heart
It all started when a new teacher held up
When Bobby McKenzie finally caught me
this picture and asked, “What’s going on
here?”
and bloodied my nose, I put my head against
everybody said how pretty the yellow house
his and hit him with my right and to my
surprise
was, the pink blossoms, the blue sky.
he winced and went down.
I said, “It’s creepy. The sidewalk leads
Rrght to the cellar.” The teacher beamed
“Stag at Sharkey’s,” I bellowed. He looked
and the McKenzie brothers made fists.
at me like I was crazy, scrambled to his feet,
and ran.
I ran for the library faster than usual.
I asked Miss Wilson for more by the same guy.
She could only find one – Stag at Sharkey’s.
I looked at that painting every day. I looked
at every inch. I looked until I was ringside,
until I was the fighter in the modest black
trunks.
Owl Pellets by Ralph Fletcher
from I Am Wings
A month ago
but couldn’t digest
in biology lab
and coughed back up.
you sat close to me
knee touching mine
You sit with Jon Fox
your sweet smell
ignore me completely
almost drowning out
laugh at his dumb jokes
the formaldehyde stink
let your head fall into
which crinkled up
his bony shoulder
your nose
while I attempt
while I dissected
to piece together
our fetal pig.
with trembling hands
the tiny bones
Now I take apart
of a baby snake.
this owl pellet
small bag that holds
Certain things
skin and hair and bones
are just about
little skeletons
impossible
what the owl ate
to swallow.
I need to find a place by Emily G.
I need to find a place
Where friendship never burns out.
I need to find a place
Where I can scream and shout.
I need to find a place
Where love is forever
Where you don’t give up – never!
I need to find a place
That is comforting and calm.
A place – where nothing goes wrong.
Edge of Life by Abigail Lynne Becker
from A Box of Rain
If I had a life I could live
It tells me to travel to mountains
Then I’d travel to places unknown.
And to places where valleys are green.
With you in my heart, I’d begin at the start
Yet it’s hard to let go of the things I
And never would I be alone.
Know
And the love and hardship I’ve seen.
A voice in the evening is calling
It tears at my soul like a fire.
If I had a dream I could give you
Yet I cannot forget the time when we met
I would wrap it in velvet and pearls
And the burning of that newfound desire.
And send it away on the rush of the wind
That would carry it over the world.
I love you, I say in the darkness
I feel that I must hold you near.
The night holds on to me tightly
Yet you slip through my grasp, like the hours And she won’t let me out in the cold.
Gone past
I’ve reaped what I’ve sown, and I’ve called
And that voice is still all I can hear.
This place home
Still I’m searching for something to hold.
Hibiscus by Graeham D.
Evergreen branches
amidst fern-like leaves,
sway in the pry of the
curled delicately,
docile breeze;
tiny and pale,
clouds,
a sleeping baby’s fingers.
carded wool,
danced on tiptoe across the
sky.
Hibiscus flowerets
And somewhere in this world
a baby sleeps,
someone is falling in love,
fold drowsily in
an oyster shell reveals two
pearls, and
buds,
you finally believe in yourself.
raspberry pink
Petrified gray face
The following are haikus written after looking at a similar drawing:
Petrified gray face
Tell us your scary story
We dare to listen.
By: Erica S.
Stare them down, brave woman
With your empty hollow eyes
It will be done soon.
By: Kira G.
Frowning in the dark
Alone, not to be disturbed
Always be yourself
By: Jordan S.
My mother always wanted by Heejung K.
A graceful daughter
My mother then convinced
So she enrolled me in
Me to take violin lessons. At first
Mme. DuPont’s
I loved the responsibility
School of Ballet
And the sophistication needed to play
For Young Mademoiselles.
Such a sleek instrument,
I practiced for
Which cost my parents
A month until my toes
A hefty sum. But then
Bled and my legs throbbed.
Sticky rosin, the
I quit, gracefully.
Laborious practicing, and
The heavy case thudding
Then my mother hired
Against my leg
A tutor, so that I
Became tiresome.
Could excel in my studies.
I packed the violin away, quietly.
I didn’t like this
Woman and eventually
Told her “You have a
Bad attitude.”
She never came back.
I grinned, excellently.
When will she learn?
Nail Biting by Emma T.
Nail biting is a disease. It’s contagious. My sister caught it from me. I’ve tried to find a
cure. The special nail polish, the kind that tastes like rotten eggs, lasts for a week. But,
I’d chew it off. Mom used to bribe me. But even as a kid, candy and pennies didn’t
tempt me.
Letting my nails grow so that I can make them look nice doesn’t work either. It just
takes too much time. Some people spend hours buffing, polishing, and painting. Three
coats of polish take a long time to dry. People paint patterns, like intricate rosebuds,
family portraits, yachts, or even love messages. The designs are so tiny that it becomes
a painstaking and lengthy job.
Biting my nails takes a lot less time, energy, and money.
However, nail biting is an ugly disease. It leaves scars. Your cuticles become ripped
and your nails become rough. Sometimes it even hurts if you bite them too short. I’ve
bitten my nails until my fingers bleed.
Why do I bite my nails? Tests make me bite them, especially the tests that
teachers keep putting off. Scary movies make me bite my nails. Games and sports are
the worst. Any sport in which I’m not constantly in action means my nails are under
attack. Somebody has to find a cure.
Some people grow out of their nail biting. But it has stuck with me, even though
my friends and family bug me about it. They say my nails are disgusting and I have to
stop biting them. It doesn’t work.
Actually though, I am getting worried. I’m almost in high school, and chewing my
nails doesn’t seem like a very sophisticated thing to do. That might stop me.
Mama Sewing by Eloise Greenfield and Lessie Jones Little
from Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir
I don’t know why Mama sewed for me. She sewed for other people,
made beautiful dresses and suits and blouses, and got paid for doing it.
But I don’t know why she sewed for me. I was so mean.
It was all right in the days when she had to make my dresses a
little longer in the front than in the back to make up for the way I
stood, with my legs pushed back and my stomach out. I was little then,
and I trusted Mama. But when I got older, I worried.
Mama would turn the dress on the wrong side and slide it over my
head, being careful not to let the pins stick me. She’d kneel on the floor
with her pin cushion, fitting the dress on me, and I’d look down at that
dress, at that lopsided, raw-edged, half-basted, half-pinned thing – and
know that it was never going to look like anything. So I’d pout while
Mama frowned and signed and kept on pinning.
Sometimes she would sew all night, and in the morning I’d have a
perfectly beautiful dress, just right for the school program or the party.
I’d put it on, and I’d be so ashamed of the way I acted. I’d be too
ashamed to say I was sorry.
But Mama knew.